McNabb is back home, even if outwardly he's all business

JONES

October 03, 2004|By Gordie Jones, The Morning Call

Donovan McNabb called this a "business trip" the other day. Said that while it will be nice to see his family and friends when he and the Eagles play in his hometown today, the idea is to go in, get a victory over the Bears and get out.

We all know it means a bit more to him than that, of course.

We also know by now that this is McNabb's way. That he will keep us all at arm's length. Maybe not stiff-arm us per se, because he hardly seems a mean-spirited sort, but at least juke and jive and evade.

He has mastered the ability to hide in plain sight. To be cordial but not leave his life an open book. To say the right things but not say too much. And to put us on a little bit, too; witness the joking reference he made last weekend to his faux laser eye surgery, which in some national media outlets was folded, spindled and mutilated beyond all recognition.

There are times he does interviews with his hair all combed-out, all Buckwheat-like, and we are convinced he is finally going to loosen up, let us have a look under the hood. But he invariably retreats again; subsequent interviews will be conducted with his hair combed sensibly, his clothes immaculate, his voice its customary monotone.

It is different within the team, and even more different back here. How could it not be? He is again among old, familiar faces, again surrounded by people who revere him not for being a superstar but because he is a son. A brother. A friend. A former teammate.

It could never be like that for him anywhere else. Certainly not in Philadelphia, despite all the success he has enjoyed. Let's remember that his first exposure to the fans of that fair city was to be booed -- on draft day, no less.

He has never lashed out about that -- again, it is not his way -- and those on the other side long ago offered clumsy apologies. But the moment will no doubt be forever seared into his consciousness.

Then there is the fact that a certain segment of the populace has never warmed to him as a quarterback, and apparently never will. He is not an accurate enough passer, they say. He has not won the big one, they say. He is not this, he is not that.

So yeah, it must always be good to come home, to the people who accept him without qualification. To his parents, Samuel and Wilma, who still live in a suburb outside of town. To his older brother Sean.

Wilma is the woman in the Campbell Chunky Soup commercials, of course. Talked her way into the job when she was invited onto the set to witness the shooting of the initial spot a few years back, and, finding that another woman had been enlisted to play Donovan's mom, said there was no reason to use an impostor.

In the latest commercial she is shown invading the Eagles' locker room and feeding her son and his teammates. Apparently it is not far from the truth; she has been known to lay out an impressive spread at the team hotel when the Eagles visit, and was expected to do the same this weekend.

Donovan has always relished his upbringing. Said in an interview with the authors of "The Great Philadelphia Fan Book" that he wanted to be "the good son," and apparently was. And is.

He was also by all accounts a good teammate at Mount Carmel High, an all-boys school on Chicago's South Side. It was there that he played football with Simeon Rice, the current NFL star, and basketball with Antoine Walker, the NBA baller. It was there that he finished out his football career by winning a city title in Soldier Field.